not the man they think I am at home
by PreludeInZ
Summary: Based on the headcanon that John Tracy is aromantic/asexual.


"...Gordon, why don't you go bug John about this? __He's__ the one who went out with Lady Penelope."

It's maybe a little cruel, but even Virgil has his limits. And flat on his back on a mechanic's creeper, trying to torque open a fused fuel port underneath Pod-A, he's really not in the mood for Gordon's melancholy pining for IR's London Agent. Gordon has a crush. It's common knowledge. It's getting tiresome. Gordon's sprawled out across the top of the Pod, being distinctly unhelpful. If he were at least willing to hand down tools that would be one thing, but no. Mostly he's just interested in lamenting how he's never going to be anywhere near Penelope's league.

"...he __what__?" Gordon's feet hit the ground and his ankle hooks underneath the handle of the wheeled board. The second youngest yanks Virgil out from underneath his pod, ignoring the death glare he's receiving. "When? Forget when, __how__? John? And __Lady P__? You're winding me up."

Virgil kicks Gordon's foot off the edge of his board, rolls back under the pod. "It was when he was at Oxford for that linguistics program, they were classmates. Years ago. I don't know the details, I just know it happened. __Go bug John__."

Gordon's already gone storming out of the hangar, and Virgil makes a mental note to apologize to his older brother. But later. After he's finished enjoying a peaceful, quiet space in which to get some work done.

* * *

John's home from orbit for the weekend, and invariably he tends to spend his daylight hours by the pool, reading and attempting to replenish depleted stores of vitamin D. Gordon's opinion of the second-eldest has dropped considerably in the time it's taken to get from Virgil's workspace up to the poolside, so he's irrationally irritated already and finding fault with everything.

But John sunbathes all wrong, anyway. Because what's the point, if he's Tucked up on a lounge chair beneath an umbrella, with sunscreen on his nose and sunglasses and a t-shirt and knee-length board shorts? So what if he's fair-skinned, John is dumb. Stupid John with his stupid green eyes, his stupid unbroken nose, his stupid more-than-six-feet of height. Stupid, handsome, __brilliant__ John who went to Oxford after graduating from MIT, who used to go out with Lady Penelope and never thought to even __mention__ it. Probably he's been watching Gordon make a fool out of himself around Penny for ages, the __bastard__.

This entire train of thought has Gordon's jaw clenched and his teeth gritting, but it's also been entirely private. So when John looks up (stupid green eyes peering over his turtle-shell sunglasses) and smiles in greeting, it probably seems a __bit__ out of the blue when Gordon grabs hold of John's chair, shoves it to the pool's edge, and tips him into the water.

Except stupid John with his stupid NASA training, his stupid four hundred hours logged at NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Lab. John's almost as good a swimmer as Gordon is. He pops to the surface of the pool like a cork, his sunglasses gone, his sunscreen smudged, and his book floating forlornly on the pool surface. Bewildered, not even angry. And Gordon __almost__ feels bad, but by this point he's committed, so he just glares malevolently down at his brother with folded arms.

There's a long stretch of silence as John pulls himself out of the water and wrings out his t-shirt, even as his younger brother goes to take over his deck chair, sitting down in a huff.

John fishes out his sunglasses and his book and then finally looks up. "...I'd like to know why I deserved that? I would've moved if you wanted the chair. Although there are four others available, so it seems like a moot point. You owe me a new copy of __The Illustrated Man__."

Stupid John. Gordon decides he'd better get to the point before he clocks his big brother in his stupid face. "You used to date Lady Penelope and you never __told me__."

"What?" His brother blinks. "Uh. Well—"

"I can't believe you. I know you have your whole __separate and above__ thing going on and I don't care, but if you've been laughing at me this whole time, John, I __swear__ —"

John interrupts. "Can I ask who told you that I ever dated Penelope?"

" _ _Penelope__ ," Gordon echoes, fuming, though it's hardly the first time John's dropped the title from the front of her name. He's just never read into the familiarity in it.

"...Lady Penelope told you we dated?" John questions, still baffled.

"No, __Virgil__ did, and I'm mad at him too, but—"

"What did he say, exactly?"

Gordon growls at the third degree, though this is thoroughly hypocritical. "That you and Lady Penelope were at Oxford together, and you went out."

"... _ _once__. We went out __once__." John holds up a finger, emphatically single, just a little bit patronizing. "You managed to make the blind intellectual leap from 'John went out with Penelope at Oxford, __six years ago__ ' to 'John and Penelope dated secretly and I was never informed because my big brother wants me to look like an idiot*? Really?"

"...well..."

John puts his sunglasses back on, shoos Gordon off his deck chair. Gordon, more than a little abashed, lets him have it. "It was barely a date, either," John continues, rubbing his nose and sighing at the damp mess of paper in his hands. "Scott's the one who dated in college, not me. And Virgil. Not me. Back to back doctorates at MIT? I graduated and volunteered to take dispatch on 'Five, and Dad sent me overseas for an accelerated Masters of Linguistics while it was being built. Gordon, when the hell do you think I'd have had __time__?"

Gordon's profoundly apologetic now, though he still wants to know what sort of circumstances had Penelope dating his older brother. There are six years between him and John, and Lady Penelope's of an age with Virgil, smack in between the both of them. "...did you ask her out, though?"

This is apparently touching a nerve, because John seems to be getting annoyed. " _ _No__. I just told you, __I didn't date in college__. I never asked anybody out."

"...she asked __you__ out?" This is heartbreaking, because of __course__ John is Penny's type. Tall and clever and more traditionally handsome, stupid John. What Gordon wouldn't give for the pretty blonde woman to call him up and want to go out for coffee. Or tea, more probably, in Lady Penelope's case.

John shrugs awkwardly and for the first time Gordon realizes he might be misreading his older brother. What looks like irritation is starting to seem like it might be uneasiness, embarrassment. "The daughter of one of Dad's friends was in one of my classes. She didn't ask me out, exactly. She asked me to come by her dorm and have a look at their server room—said their internet was flaky. I said I'd take a look."

Gordon can't help but grin. "...wow, you meant it when you said it was barely a date. Jeez, John. You've got like __no__ game."

John's either blushing or he has the beginnings of a sunburn, both are equally likely. He's pulled his long legs up to sit cross-legged, fully in the shade of the umbrella behind him, and his eyes are invisible behind dark glasses. He's looking away, in any case, toying with the slightly ragged canvas edges of his chair. "There was a bet going around that no-one could get a date with me, because I'd only ever turned down anyone who asked. I guess it was kind of a trick. You know Penelope, she's competitive. Their internet was fine, nothing obviously wrong with it. She apologized for wasting my time. Offered to take me out to dinner, apparently it wouldn't have counted if we didn't at least get as far as a restaurant."

"What, so you just went to dinner?"

This gets a smile, shy and a little bit sheepish. "No, I got to poking around their server room anyway and the system architecture was __atrocious__. I recoded the entire thing—I was at it until like four in the morning, I get kinda in the zone when it comes to P2P structures. Lady Penelope just hung around being extremely polite and British and not saying anything to the effect that it had all been for a bet. I didn't find out until we were walking to class afterward, she was good enough to tell me. Penelope and I are just friends, Gordon. We've been friends ever since, but that's all."

"...oh." John's hair is still damp, his t-shirt still clinging to his narrow shoulders. He shivers a little absently, and now Gordon feels like an __ass__. "...aw man, John. I'm sorry. You know me, shoot first; questions later. Throw your brother in the pool 'cuz you're a jealous idiot. It's just I've got a hell of a crush on her, y'know how it is."

John shrugs, and Gordon isn't sure the apology's accepted or not. "No, you know, I really don't. The relationship thing. Crushes. It's not really my area."

Gordon sits down on the edge of the deck chair, punches his brother lightly in the arm. "What, just cuz you missed out in college? Nah, John, there's still plenty of time left! You're not even thirty yet. We oughta go out to the mainland sometime, hit a few bars, meet some girls. You know. Me and you, we don't hang out that much..."

The answering look is strange, a little quizzical. John pulls his sunglasses off again and gives his younger brother a frank, appraising stare. "No. Thanks, Gordon, but no. I mean, I appreciate the sentiment, but it's really nothing I'm interested in. It'd be disingenuous. I've been turning people down since I got out of highschool. I'm happy on my own."

"...Aw, John—" There's a lightning bolt to his brain. "Oh! Uh, or not-girls! I mean, I didn't mean to specify, I just assumed. I don't care though. Like, seriously, I don't care. Me and Virge are out all the time, and he's into just about anybody."

John's answer is firm, discouraging. "No, not girls. But not anybody else, either. Look, apology accepted, Gordon. If you want to get dinner or something sometime, that's fine. But I'm not doing the bar scene. Or the dating scene. It's not my thing."

This is massively guilt inducing, and makes Gordon wonder if that one bad experience in college was enough to put John off dating forever. Only it wasn't even __that__ bad an experience, from what he can tell, so this is clearly ridiculous. "Well, okay. But c'mon, John, you haven't dated since highschool? We can skip the whole bar crawl thing, but lemme introduce you to some people. Might hit it off with somebody. Man, I've got friends all over the place, people are always asking about my brothers. Probably I could set you up with somebody, what's your type—"

John's apparently starting to get sick of being interrogated, because he gathers up his book and his sunglasses and looks pointedly at the doors into the kitchen. "I don't have a type. There's nothing wrong with not wanting anyone, Gordon. I've got family, I've got friends. I've never wanted anything more than that. It's really not that complicated."

"Well, I guess it doesn't have to be complicated for me not to get it. You've just been in space too long, I think."

"Oh, no. No, Gordon, this has been true for __years__." John turns the book he's carrying over in his hands a few times, thumbs the damp pages. Then he thumps it solidly against Gordon's chest. "Dry this out. Read __The Rocketman__. Then we'll talk."

* * *

Gordon thumps the book back down, on the table next to John, catching him just after he's finished a late dinner. The second eldest is lingering over a cup of coffee, a slice of Virgil's homemade chocolate cake. His schedule's always been a little different, a little out of sync with the rest of the family. Scott and Virgil are out on call, Grandma's in bed, Alan's cramming in the last of his homework before it's due in the morning. John's already back in uniform, he'll be heading back up before the close of the hour, nine p.m. Gordon takes a seat across from him, starts the conversation.

"So you don't think you could make the choice between __space__ and being with somebody? With a wife, with a kid? That's no reason not even to __try__ , John."

John downs the last of his coffee, spins the mug in slow cicles in his long fingered hands. The comm on his wrist is already blinking as he smiles, half to himself, watching a dark bead of liquid run around the interior rim of the mug. "First time you've read it, right? That's what you took away?"

"Well, yeah, obviously that's the point—"

John isn't really listening, talks over his brother. "I was fourteen the first time I read it. The Rocketman. And I can see your way of thinking; I can get my head around it, in the abstract at least. That the guy's a coward, for not being able to choose one or the other. But I thought it was the __stupidest__ thing I'd ever read in my entire life, back then." He lifts his gaze and grins at his brother, and it's the same grin Gordon gets when Penelope crosses his mind. Like a man in love. "Because there was no way in the __world__ I could imagine anything competing with what's out there. I hadn't even been beyond orbit yet, but it was still all I thought I'd ever want. And now that I have? Now that it's my whole life? I __know__ there's nothing else, and I don't want there to be. It's not a choice, it's not abstinence or celibacy or anything like that, it's just who I am. It's not complicated. But I understand if you don't get it."

Gordon doesn't, isn't sure he will. But he's not stupid, even if he's not as smart as John is. And he can get his head around it, in the abstract, at least. "No, I guess I don't. But I can respect it, one way or the other. I didn't mean to give you a hard time, Johnny." He pauses, idly flicks the corner of the book on the table, definitely the worse for wear what with age and dogeared pages and recent chlorination. "It's a song, too," he mentions, idly. "The Rocketman. Elton John." Gordon hums a few bars to himself, yawns. Nine in the evening is late, when you get up at four every morning to swim laps, but he'd wanted to say goodbye to John. "Good song."

"I know."

"Heh. Oldies. Anyway, I think I get __that__ a bit better."

John nods, shrugs. "Different ways of saying the same thing."

Gordon laughs, "Oh, man, no. It's the song __you__ don't get, if you think they say the same thing. Nah."

"To each their own."

"You said it. We okay, Johnny?"

"We're fine, Gordon." John gets up, takes his book again. He looks at the battered cover for a few long moments, before glancing up at Gordon, sly, a little bit crafty. "Lady Penelope always liked bookstores, back at Oxford. Antique places, mostly, it's hard to get your hands on paper copies of books any more. I can't even remember how many old archives she dragged me through, the Bodleian Library, antique stores—but that's where I picked this up. I could use a replacement." He tosses his brother the battered old paperback. "Maybe she'd give you a hand looking, if you called and asked her?"

The only appropriate answer to this is another beaming grin and a tight, appreciative brotherly hug. John ruffles Gordon's hair, Gordon elbows him in the ribs, and walks him to the space elevator before heading to bed.

Six years between them, and love of a common kind. And as he watches the white capsule of the space elevator, bring his brother back to the deep starlit sky he loves above all else, Gordon's glad he understands John a bit better than he had before.


End file.
